


Beach Boys

by ungoodpirate



Series: Pynch Week 2018 [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beach, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Day At The Beach, Flirting, M/M, Pynch Week 2018, Romantic Fluff, Ronan-Typical Language, Summer, pynch - Freeform, pynchweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15407523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: Ronan Lynch was oft accused of lacking self-control -- from every teacher he had in high school to his older brother -- but apparently a cute face and shirtless torso were enough to teach him a modicum enough to bite his tongue before he gave such a bad of a first impression that it was irrevocable....There was something about summer, about the warm nights and long days that made it seem full of possibilities....An alt first meeting AU, just pure fluff and flirting set during a beach trip....Day 3 of Pynch Week 18 - Summer.





	Beach Boys

“This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me,” Ronan grumbled. 

Blue tilted her head back to the clear sky and laughed. “Socializing and sunlight. We’ve found your kryptonite, Lynch.” 

“Shut it, Sargent,” he countered. 

“Come on, now,” Gansey -- ever the dad friend -- said. “This is supposed to be fun.” 

Ronan Lynch was at an unfathomable loss to how the beach -- of all places -- could be considered fun. Was it the sand that would turn as hot as molten lava under the afternoon sun? Was it the potential sunburn slash peeling skin slash skin cancer awaiting from said afternoon sun? Was it the giant body of polluted water that wished them all death? Or was it the crowds of people squeezed into spandex, yelling and laughing and otherwise being obnoxious with their existences? 

Not only had he been cajoled and annoyed and threatened even (courtesy of Blue) into joining his friends on this outing, but it wasn’t just his friends. It was also Gansey and Blue’s friends from the university, many of which he had never met or had only met in circumstances that hadn’t gone all that well. The lot of them had stuffed into two cars and drove down to the ocean for a weekend beach trip. 

The sprawl of them set up a camp of roughly a half dozen beach chairs, a full dozen beach bags, two coolers, and a singular umbrella. Ronan immediately parked his ass in the limited shade. 

“You know you wouldn’t be so hot if you weren’t wearing all black,” said Henry Cheng, one of the friends from university that Ronan had met before, but not under circumstances that went well. 

Ronan bared his teeth.

Everyone was barely settled in when someone suggested a dip in the ocean, and then everyone was shedding off t-shirts and coverups before running down the shore.

So Ronan Lynch was left by -- mostly -- himself, except for the fact the beach was filled with people. 

“Don’t care for the sun much?” asked an unfamiliar voice. 

Ronan was all ready to tell the owner of said voice to fuck off, but then he looked at said owner of said voice. 

Ronan Lynch was oft accused of lacking self-control -- from every teacher he had in high school to his older brother -- but apparently a cute face and shirtless torso were enough to teach him a modicum enough to bite his tongue before he gave such a bad of a first impression that it was irrevocable. 

“It’s my Irish skin that doesn’t fucking like the sun,” Ronan replied, which was much nicer that the “fuck off” he had planned, if still a course response. 

The boy laughed, so that was something. He was leaned back, propped up by his arms on a towel, in nothing but a pair of swim shorts. He was in full view of the sun, but his skin was sun-bronzed in a way that implied that he didn’t have to deal with burning. Freckles were splashed across the top of the guy’s shoulders and the bridge of his nose. Ronan had the strange urging of a collector; he wanted to count them all. 

“What about you?” Ronan said. “Don’t like swimming?” This was an attempt at conversation -- the back and forth give and take. He wasn’t good at it and he didn’t like it, but most things in life you wanted you had to get through some element of dialogue. 

“I don’t know how to swim,” the boy replied. “It doesn’t seem like a body of water where you have to be concerned with things like breakers and riptides is a good place to learn.” His gaze lingered on Ronan for a moment. Then he stretched an arm across the gap between them for a  handshake. “I’m Adam.” 

Ronan shook his hand. Even though he knew it was the crash of waves against the beach, he could’ve sworn it was his whole head filling static instead at the skin-to-skin contact. 

“Ronan,” he replied, a little delayed. 

“Ronan Lynch?” His tone was all shock and curiosity. 

Ronan was used to his name being known around his home town and back when he was in high school, but not on a beach on the other side of the state. “That doesn’t fucking sound good.”

“Your reputation precedes you,” Adam said. Ronan let his gaze linger on him as he resettled back into his leaned pose. 

“Is that good or bad?” Ronan asked. 

“It’s…” The ‘s’ was held out, and Adam’s gaze lingered precisely back on him. “Intriguing.” 

“Whatever Cheng said about me…” Ronan said. 

“Isn’t true?” Adam proposed. 

“Fuck no. He deserved it.”

This Adam guy laughed again. Somehow Ronan was managing to be charming, and only by adding a thin layer of civility to his natural opinions. 

“I don’t recognize you from school,” Adam said. 

“I don’t go to your school. Or any school,” Ronan said. That’s all he wanted to leave it at, but he knew questions like this meant you had to give more if you didn’t want to just cut the conversation off, which is exactly what he didn’t want to do. “I’m a friend of Gansey’s from way back. He and Sargent force me to go to shit because they’re worried I’ll become too much of a depressing loner.”

“Same,” Adam said. “The depressing loner part… I have a reputation too. It’s for studying too much.”

“Scandalous.”

Adam’s gaze moved over the crowds of people where plenty were laid out sunbathing. “Going to the beach… laying around doing nothing. I just don’t get it. It makes my skin itch. I always like to be doing something productive.”

“Work hard, play hard?” 

“More like work hard, sleep hard. When I can get it.” 

“So you don’t have any fun?” Ronan said, feeling daring. 

Adam’s eyes gleamed. “... I could do with some more fun.”  
Their fliration was interrupted from several of their party returning to their beach basecamp and declaring that they were going up to the empty top of the beach near the dunes to play frisbee. Were Adam or Ronan in? Adam agreed first; he was the one who didn’t like sitting still after all. Ronan was the one who didn’t like other people, but he liked Adam so far and it was strange to see what a person would put up with for something else they wanted. 

Ronan got to his feet, cricked his neck, and decided risking a little sunburn was worth it as he stripped off his black t-shirt. Dumping his balled up shirt on the sand, he was pleased to catch Adam looking at him, then looking away too fast when caught. 

Up on the warm sand, playing frisbee, there were several different styles of gameplay at work. Those who didn’t put much effort when the frisbee flew out of their immediate reach (Henry, Noah), those who put in an earnest effort to race after the frisbee no matter which way it was misthrown (Adam, Gansey), and those who cursed out Ronan when he intentionally kept throwing it way over their head (Blue).  

Despite himself and his stubborn hates-everythingness, Ronan found himself having fun. The pink that had developed across the top of his shoulders and the bridge of his nose were sensations subsumed by the elation of pumping adrenaline and ephorma: running around, diving onto the sand for a catch, laughing, sharing in some comunal joy, catching Adam looking at him, and Adam catching the return. 

 

#

 

“Hey, what’re you doing out here?” that same interrupting voice said. Ronan turned his head on the lounge-style beach chair. He was out on the deck of the beach house that had been rented for the crowd of them that weekend. Half of the crowd -- which had mysteriously seemed to double in size from the beach to here -- he didn’t know the names of. Of the ones he knew the names, only half of those he liked. 

Staying on the edge of the group as they laughed loud and talked louder over pizza, Ronan was pushed away from the few people he knew for most of the afternoon and evening. Yet here in the night things were turning his way again. 

The night was cooler than day and the passing breeze made it even more comfortable. 

If this had been Cheng, he would’ve said, ‘None of your fucking business.’ If was Gansey or Sargent, then wouldn’t even of had to ask. 

But it was Adam. And this was new. And Ronan wanted to see where this would go. 

“I don’t sleep well in unfamiliar places.”

“Ah,” Adam said, not much to say. 

Give and take, Ronan. Give and take. 

“You?” he asked. 

“My beach weekend roommate snores.”

“Please tell me its Cheng.” What he had against Henry Cheng wasn’t really anything he had against him. It was a rivalry. A friendship rivalry. Over Gansey. Ronan might’ve known him longer, but Cheng saw him more than Ronan now that they were in college together. It turned out Ronan Lynch was a jealous creature because he didn’t generally make connections easily. 

“No,” Adam said, crossing his bare arms before himself as one of the cool breezes when past. “Noah.”

“I like Noah,” Ronan replied. “He’s a good kid.”

“He’s older than all of us.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he took like an extend, half a decade ‘gap year’ before starting college.”

“Huh.”

A cloud overhead shifted, bringing the pregnant gibbous moon into full view. There was a problem with this situation. Adam was still standing just a step outside the sliding glass door that separated the inside and the out. It was like he was going to retreat any moment.

“This chair is really big,” Ronan said, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

“I guess,” Adam replied, clearly not getting it. 

Ronan scooched from the center to one side. “A whole second person could fit on here. If they don’t mind being close.”

There was a scoff-laugh. Now Adam got it. Was he to take up the offering though?

The porch’s wood flooring creaked under the weight of footsteps as Ronan started deliberately up at the night sky and its spattering of stars. 

Adam eased down the space of the lounger, situating himself on his side and propped a little up on one arm. Ronan just tilted his head to look up at him. They engage in a long and protracted moment of wordless eye contact like engaging in a game of chicken. 

A game which Adam lost, eyes shuttering first as he moves in for an anticipated kiss. Contact. Ronan responded in kind. 

Adam parted lips from his just enough to ask, “This is what you had in mind when you asked me over here…?”

“It’s what I had in mind since I didn’t tell you to fuck off when you first talked to me.”

Adam laughed a ghost of something, but then didn’t have much else to say as Ronan drew him back in. 

After a fun, exploring while of making out, they ended up settled and cuddled together on the beach lounger. Although he hadn’t a drop to drink that day, Ronan’s head felt filled with bubbles anyway. 

“Will I see you after this weekend?” Adam asked. His head was on Ronan’s shoulder. Half of his body, in fact, was draped warm across Ronan. 

There was something about summer, about the warm nights and long days that made it seem full of possibilities. 

“Yeah,” Ronan said. “Wherever Gansey’s at, I’ll be skulking around.”

Adam hummed deep in throat. The wisps of his hair tickled against Ronan’s jaw. 

“If I give you my number,” Adam said. “Will you use it?”

“If I use your number,” Ronan said. “Will come out to have fun?”  

“I could be tempted.”

Ronan snorted. 

Adam lifted his head a little to look at him through the dark. “What?”

“I’m Catholic,” Ronan said. “So I know all about temptation.”

Adam hmmed again, this time it came deep from his chest. “What interesting things, then, the future might hold.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think Adam and Ronan would really hate the beach, but I love the beach so...


End file.
